Calif. Sen. Feinstein: "I oppose marijuana legalization because I worry about stoned drivers"

Borderland Beat

Yesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told the Associated Press she opposes marijuana legalization in her state partly because she worries about stoned drivers. "The risk of people using marijuana and driving is very substantial," she said. A.P. helped Feinstein make her case by citing "a possible example":

The California Highway Patrol is investigating a fatal weekend collision in Santa Rosa as being related to marijuana use. A woman and her daughter-in-law were killed when a Toyota Camry in which they were riding was rear-ended by a pickup truck. A preliminary CHP investigation determined that the 30-year-old man driving the pickup was impaired by marijuana and reading a text message on his cellphone at the time of the collision.

If this case is evidence in favor of marijuana prohibition, it is also evidence in favor of cellphone prohibition. By the same token, the fact that people die in alcohol-related crashes is evidence in favor of alcohol prohibition. In fact, since alcohol impairs driving ability more dramatically than marijuana does, legalizing pot might actually reduce traffic fatalities, to the extent that more pot smoking is accompanied by less drinking.

There is evidence of such an effect in states that have legalized marijuana for medical use. States like California, where traffic fatalities fell by 30 percent between 1996, when voters approved medical marijuana, and 2011. 

Even when you control for the nationwide decline during that period, adoption of medical marijuana laws is associated with a drop in fatal crashes, as opposed to the increase feared by Feinstein. The senator does not seem to have noticed that her own state, where the doctor's recommendations that allow medical use are notoriously easy to obtain, has been testing her hypothesis for almost two decades.

Feinstein offered another reason for opposing marijuana legalization:

She said serving on the California Women's Board of Terms and Parole during the 1960s allowed her to see how marijuana, in her view, led to bigger problems for many female inmates.

"I saw a lot of where people began with marijuana and went on to hard drugs," Feinstein said.

The "gateway drug" theory espoused by Feinstein is at least 63 years old, and it is no more credible today than when Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger was citing it as a reason to fear marijuana. In addition to the conceptual problems with Feinstein's theory, you may have noticed a weakness in her research methods.

When you draw your sample of cannabis consumers from a population of prisoners, it is hardly surprising if you find that cannabis consumption is associated with bad outcomes. Such as going to prison. If Feinstein wants to draw a causal link between smoking pot and "bigger problems," she will have to do better than that.

Or maybe she won't. It all depends on whether we are past the period when pot prohibitionists could get by with unsubstantiated fears and anecdotes from the 1960s.

And...What will be the cost of a pack of joints?

At Fast Company, writer Thor Benson calculates how much a pack of joints—or marijuana cigarettes, if you prefer—would be likely to cost should a major cigarette company decide to get in on the game soon. As of now, rumors that Marlboro is going to pot (I'm sorry) are just that: rumors. But as the weed business begins booming legally in more states, "don't be surprised to see big tobacco turn into big marijuana," writes Benson. Until then, pricing a pack of joints is purely a thought exercise. But who hasn't wondered what a 20-pack of Camel Greens might cost? 

In June of 2013, a company named BOTEC speculated that the production cost of marijuana ranges from $2 to $3 per gram, which “implies a price to retailers of $6.25, which is broadly consistent with current access points paying about $5 per gram.” The average Marlboro cigarette has just under one gram of tobacco in each of the 20 cigarettes contained in a pack. So at the low end of things, you’re looking at a production cost of nearly $40 per pack of Mary Janes.....[continues on next page...]

... But production cost also does not factor in what the company must charge to make a profit. The Economics of Smoking, written in 1992, declared that production costs are often half of what cigarette companies wholesale their product for, so what costs a large corporation $40 per pack could result in a $70 or $80 retail price. [others estimate $50-55]

Bummer. But Benson is optimistic that economies of scale could bring the cost down. Another price-lowering solution might be for companies to mix tobacco with marijuana.

If marijuana cigarettes were to be mixed with tobacco, at a 50-50 ratio, it would bring the cost down significantly. Many tobacco farmers will wholesale a pound of their product for less than $2. With a 50-50 ratio of marijuana to tobacco, the cost of producing a pack of 20 pre-rolled joints could be brought down to just a little more than $20—so a $40 pack at the store.

But adding in tobacco would likely bring on more state sin taxing, so perhaps not a terribly cost-saving measure for consumers. Plus we'd have to endure a lot of concern over how half-marijuana and half-tobacco cigarettes would normalize marijuana, or re-normalize tobacco, or something. Heaven help us should anyone make one cherry flavored. 

Of course, with the kids all going e-cigarettes and vaporizers these days, perhaps the more savvy route for businesses would be selling e-joints. Electronic cigarettes are "now regularly used as a way to consume marijuana," according to Benson. There's apparently a booming underground and legal market in THC oil e-cigs already.  [on the internet and you tube]

Marlboro's parent company, Altria, recently acquired e-cig manufacturer Green Smoke, a move which Quartz writer John McDuling thinks signifies its interest in the marijuana business. One e-cigarette manufacturer told McDuling that use of the products for smoking pot is "an open secret," and that "all the big tobacco companies" are looking into marijuana vaping technology. 

Source: Reason.Com